Learning new things is a passion of mine, and one of the best ways to expand your brain, while sitting on a plane or driving in a car is to open up a book to a whole new world of information.
A friend of mine recommended Atlas Shrugged as an essential book for the entrepreneur and business person. All my wealthy clients have read this book and all my young businesspeople, I advise them to read it. The first 100 pages are slow, but they set the stage for the rest of thousands or so pages. It is a book that provokes thought and ideas.
“The question isn’t who is going to let me; it’s who is going to stop me.” Ayn Rand
The author Ayn Rand left her mother country of Russia for the United States.
A powerful woman with a vision.
She developed her philosophy of objectivism, observing her surroundings and what she had experienced. A bold pioneer and a tremendous role model for women. She had a mindset so focused and determined, there is no excuse not to go after your dreams. Speak your truth with finesse and respect, make your actions great, and greatness will follow.
Surviving communism Ms. Rand had a front-row seat to the impact of socialism, fascism, and government control. Thriving in American, the land of opportunity, lead to a prestigious life and career.
Atlas Shrugged focused on three groups of people
1. The wealthy
2. The business people/owners
3. The masses who don’t want or can’t work.
The business people have to escape the clutches of the government as the government was bleeding them dry. Collapsing successful business empires into ruin. Ms. Rand writes in a way that you are drawn into the book’s characters, understanding the motives and hardship of each.
Objectivism is a philosophical system developed by Ayn Rand in 1943 and then solidified in Atlas Shrugged in 1957.
As with any author or philosophy, I agreed with almost everything she wrote; it was spot on. Taking money from the people who work hard and give to those that don’t is not an optimal system. I disagree with Ms. Rand in one way she was adamant that people who believe in God are stupid and primitive. Coming from a country that did not allow spirituality, her environment molded her in this area as well.
People Need a Purpose
Ayn Rand establishes that all living beings need a purpose to live; animals, humans, and mammals without one, they can go mad or at the very least lethargic with life, this leads to the collapse of every empire.
Ayn Rand also focused on the wealthy and how they sit in the castle and decide what direction the country should go. She almost mocks them in her book, they think they are intellectual with no experience. they have all the luxury that their investments or taking money from businesses, the wealthy believe that they know as they are superior to the masses, what people need. This could resemble the Koch’s annual meeting in Indian Wells every year the wealthiest people get together to determine what direction the rest of us need to go. My thought to them, go to Walmart and Nordstrom’s and mingle with the masses before deciding what is best for us.
The wealthy appointed themselves experts in what the government should do. The government in the book taxes the business until they fail, they can approve essential repairs for equipment or machinery; when they fail, the government then takes them over and runs them poorly.
In the book, entrepreneurs create a Utopia, build their own businesses or new business back up, and even create a barter the system instead of making cash.
Although this was written in the 1950s, what Ayn Rand wrote about is coming to pass, and is relevant today.
People who are driven cannot be stopped. They will always adapt and change with what every obstacle is presented to them.
This book is a good illustration of too much power in the hand of any one person or government leads to corruptions and the collapsed of the small and big businesses.
It sounds like a heavy book; it is. It is life-changing for many.
I highly recommend for those starting a business or anyone in business.